Exploring Language

From inside the book

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Page 149... no one seems able to think of tums of speech that are not hackneyed: prose
consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more
and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-
house.

Page 152The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly
closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations—race, battle, bread—dissolve
into the vague phrase “success or failure in competitive activities.” This had to be
so, ...

Page 489He held that from time immemorial lawyers had been devoted to cloudy phrases “
which from verbosity . . . are rendered more perplexed and incomprehensible not
only to common readers but to lawyers themselves.” The only period in ...